Are grain free dog foods the solution for allergies?

Are grain free dog foods the solution for allergies?

For many, the primary reason for switching to a grain free dog food is allergies.

Gathering nearly just as much momentum as the grain free dog food trend itself is the idea that in feeding such a food, companion animals are less likely to fall victim to allergies, or that the allergy they have will be cured.

Is there any scientific evidence for this? Any studies or a sound rationale backing this idea? No. Just hearsay, speculation, and marketing. Although it is true that a laboratory test may show allergy to a certain food component, these tests have been proven to be unreliable. Additionally, the allergens they test for are not the same as the components in a mixed ingredient dog food processed at hundreds of degrees and hundreds of pounds of pressure. In other words, the corn, wheat, etc. allergen used in the lab test is not the same corn, wheat, etc. that ends up in a finished dog food.

Moreover, any ingredient can cause allergies. Proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and even synthetic peptides (short protein chains) can cause allergic reactions. There is nothing particularly nefarious about grains in this regard. As you can see in the chart of grain nutrients, grains contain more nutrients than the substituted starch ingredients in grain free dog foods. These nutrients can help prevent the very allergenic tendencies one wishes to avoid. In tests at Wysong, pets that were supposedly allergic to a grain ingredient were fed the food anyway. Not only were allergic reactions stopped, the symptoms disappeared. This has been the common experience of people who have used Wysong products as directed for the past thirty years.

Many animals on grain free dog foods succumb to new allergies and a new round of health maladies. Grain free dog foods have not solved the epidemic of allergies among domestic animals because grains are not the cause. The primary cause of allergies is as it has always been - the feeding of one processed food exclusively, meal after meal, day after day, for years at a time. Is it any wonder that after a time an animal's immune system becomes overwhelmed, sensitized, and intolerant to one or many ingredients in the food?

The solution is to feed in variety, including feeding true grain free dog foods (meaning truly starch free) as found on this website, and to follow Dr. Wysong's Optimal Health Program™.